The Young Pope (DVD + Digital HD)

SKU ID #1427643

$49.99

From Paolo Sorrentino, director of the 2013 Oscar®-winning film The Great Beauty, and starring two-time Oscar®-nominee Jude Law, this ten-episode limited series tells the fictional story of Lenny Belardo, a.k.a. Pius XIII, the first-ever American Pope and the youngest elected by the College of Cardinals. At first glance, Lenny's selection over older and more experienced clerics – in particular Cardinal Spencer (James Cromwell), a fellow American and Lenny's mentor – seems part of a simple media strategy by Vatican elders, who no doubt expect the new Pope to toe the line and follow their lead. Instead, Pius XIII eschews the counsel of the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Voiello (Silvio Orlando), and enlists the woman who raised him, Sister Mary (Oscar®-winner Diane Keaton), to be his chief confidante. To the chagrin of Voiello and the PR reps who would market the handsome and charming young Pope, Lenny refuses to allow himself to be photographed (his first speech from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica is delivered in silhouette), and he announces a series of severe, hardline initiatives that confound the Vatican status quo. The Young Pope paints a portrait of a mysterious, complicated man fully aware of the contradictions and consequences of being the conservative leader of a billion followers in a changing world – but unwilling to bend in the execution of his duties.